AUBURN, Alabama -- Tahj Shamsid-Deen spent the last week wondering if what he was hearing could actually be true. KT Harrell kept his eye on every rumor, fully believing and expecting to see the news that finally came on Tuesday morning.

Harrell saw it first, a ticker update from SportsCenter that popped up on his phone. A text message from a basketball staffer to the entire team tipped off Shamsid-Deen.

Auburn had hired Bruce Pearl, ending a week of uncertainty for the team and replacing it with excitement and anticipation for what lies ahead.

"It means a lot," Harrell said. "I remember growing up in high school, watching him coach Tennessee, the passion that he had, the style of play, the fire that he had, and you could just tell it motivated his players."

Pearl's constant presence on ESPN has kept him in the college basketball consciousness.

But that's not why these players know Pearl. Both Harrell and Shamsid-Deen instantly remembered flashes of Chris Lofton, Scotty Hopson and the NCAA Tournament teams Pearl put together at Tennessee.

"Our guys have confidence, but knowing that your coach has the credibility, has been there, has been done that, it puts that in our minds," Shamsid-Deen said.

The morning after Auburn's SEC Tournament loss to South Carolina and the subsequent firing of former coach Tony Barbee at the team hotel, Shamsid-Deen admits he found himself worrying about the future.

"The next day, I was just thinking, who would the next coach be? Would he like me? Would he keep me around?" Shamsid-Deen said. "Talked to Coach Pearl, he's a pretty cool dude, and I feel like his style of play fits me well."

Harrell and Shamsid-Deen, the best two building blocks returning from an Auburn roster that loses three of its top five scorers, likely had nothing to worry about, no matter who the Tigers hired.

A senior shooter who averaged 18.3 points per game last season, Harrell becomes the team's unquestioned leader, and Shamsid-Deen offered promise as a point guard who averaged 9.5 points and posted a 2.2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio as a true freshman.

But an athlete never knows what to expect when a school hires a new coach, particularly in a sport like college basketball that has become rampant with player transfers in recent years.

Pearl met with the team on Tuesday afternoon and tried to take away some of that pressure.

"These players will never hear me say, 'when we get our own players,'" Pearl said. "Those are my players right there, and I am their coach."

Auburn's roster will have some adjusting to do.

For starters, the Tigers never played in a system like Pearl's pressing, fast-break style under Barbee, and on top of that, any past performance will be erased as Pearl develops his own evaluations.

"I asked them if they would give me some time to develop a relationship and a trust with them," Pearl said. "It is not going to happen right away. I will study how we played last year and evaluate that talent."

But the hiring of Pearl clearly offers some hope for a group of players who found themselves disappointed by a 14-16 overall finish that left them 12th in the SEC.